Playing for Time

We celebrated a milestone last month with the sale of our townhouse that had been on the market for almost five years – a little too much house for the location but it served us well for twice that long, so no regrets. Now that the Beloved Albatross is no longer our baby, the Wish List is a thing again, topped by MATTRESS – the 15-yr-old king-size pillow-top behemoth with the crime scene outlines where the bodies were. The one with three possible places to stretch out – left, right, or the crest in the middle, provided you weren’t a restless sleeper.

Armed with a recommendation from friends, we walked all innocent-like, our actual faces hanging out, into a mattress store, assuming we knew what we were doing – how hard is it to buy a mattress, right? You know how you think your friends’ kids that you never see are still wee toddlers? Same with the realm of the boudoir, who knew? A mattress is not just a mattress anymore. They still consist of a horizontal surface that fits into some sort of frame if you so desire, but that’s where the similarity to the familiar ends. The operative word now is foam and lots of it. Remember Serta? They’re still in the biz, but now you also see names like Casper, Puffy, Purple, Leesa, Ghost Bed, Nectar, Helix, and such.

After a quick education and an aha moment or two, the indented version was on its way to that great mattress paradise in the sky and we now have a new iteration that looks basically like a serene slab of cement but which welcomes my screaming bundle of cells after dark and puts me out of my misery without a struggle. I’m not sure what I did to deserve such a gift, but experience has shown me that Karma is a meticulous bookkeeper so I don’t ask too many questions. Even with the swanky always-cool pillows, we came in grossly under budget and my girl-type readers know what THAT means. Riiiight – we get to add to the list.

So far we’ve checked off three biggish-ticket items that have been hanging fire for the past five years or so, all at an unexpected discount, so maybe we’re kinda good at this. Bodes well for more fun in the future when we most need it. And we KNOW we’re going to need it.